Registered voters in US hit record 200 million: Report

A record 200 million people in the US have registered to vote in the November 8 presidential election, according to a Democratic political data firm which cited aggressive registration activity especially in key battleground states.

A record 200 million people in the US have registered to vote in the November 8 presidential election, according to a Democratic political data firm which cited aggressive registration activity especially in key battleground states.

Voter registration in America has soared to new heights as 200 million people are now registered to vote for the first time in US history, Politico reported, quoting TargetSmart, a Democratic political data firm as saying.

There is no current national database of voter registration in the US because each state independently runs its own election, the report said.

It said that data showed that voter registration passed the 200 million threshold in recent days as North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada and New York reported new voter numbers.

Tom Bonier, CEO of TargetSmart, said national registration now stands at 200,081,377 voters.

The figure means more than 50 million new people have registered to vote in the past eight years. Only 146.3 million were registered as recently as 2008, when then-Senator Barack Obama first won the White House — a remarkable 33 per cent surge in the electorate during a single presidency.

The last time a Clinton was on the presidential ballot 20 years ago, the electorate was 127.6 million people.

In a study earlier this year, the Pew Research Center said that the 2016 electorate would be the “most racially and ethnically diverse ever,” forecasting 31 per cent of the vote would come from ethnic minorities, up from 29 per cent in 2012.

The electorate has been growing by leaps in recent years, with Hispanic population growth behind much of the surge. Two decades ago, in 1996, there were not even 200 million people of voting-age population in the United States, let alone registered voters, the report said.

Previously, the biggest turnout in presidential election history came in 2008, when 131.4 million people voted (turnout dipped slightly to 129.2 million in 2012).

By percentage, however, the share of eligible Americans who actually complete ballots is not expected to be anywhere near a record. It has been nearly a half-century since 60 per cent of voting-age adults voted. That last happened in 1968, the report added.